Nightsticks and Barracades
by Kit-Quicksand
Summary: Yuffie sees Reno in Axel, and tries to catch her breath while she pours salt on her wounds. Oneshot.


Yuffie runs straight to her room, past Leon's scrunched up face of confusion and angst and Sultan of emoness-ness, and past Aerith's concerned too-pretty eyes on her too-pretty face. Not that this is actually her room, or her house, or even her world, she has been reminded that a lot lately; but it's a handy replacement for times like now- when she needs at least a basic shelter.

She can hear Squall… er Leon, or whatever the hell he wants to be called, yelling for her (no doubt rolling his eyes, oh look Yuffie is emotional _again_) but she puts the pillow that isn't hers over her face and ears as she flops down onto the bed and lets the cheap material drown out what ever lecture he is preaching- she doesn't want to hear it, and she doesn't want to be here.

She thinks about maybe suffocating herself, maybe then she will wake up and be in Seven Heaven with a hangover, instead of Hollow fucking Bastion- but suffocation-suicide is pretty much the lamest way to die ever, and well if she was going to off herself, it would have to be a hell of a lot more dramatic than that. With twelve minute monologues, and piranha shooting bazookas- or something equally as awesome.

She gets up to quickly and locks the door, then puts all the spare furniture that she can possibly lift with her scrawny, skinned up, chicken arms and barricades the door; it will be a bitch to deal with later, but right now it looks like the bestest, steadiest wall she has ever seen, baring its teeth to anything that even so much as thinks of coming in- Leon, Aerith, heartless, anything and everything. This room is _strictly_ reserved for Yuffie and her ghosts, no boys aloud; nah nah boo boo.

She steps back, staring at her army of nightstands and mirrors and dressers giving them a nod of approval and finally feels secure enough to breathe- which she is sure she hasn't done since she saw him… or the him clone lookalike thing, which _couldn't_ have actually _really_ have happened, right?

She walks over to the huge gothic style window on the other side of the room (it isn't honestly that big, but she feels so small that it looks enormous), its framed with curves and twists and pretty sad designs just like everything in this place, gothic architecture, gothic lifestyle- depressing and morbid.

But the stars are out, (she reminds herself that they aren't really stars, they are _worlds_… worlds that are being slowly being eaten by darkness, and little stupid ant creatures that look too retarded to ever be taken seriously- like _her _planet, which isn't really there, not anymore) and in just about every book she ever read the characters looked to the stars for relief, and she is starving for some of that. She thinks she remembers _he_ had a liking to stars; she remembers a lot more then she lets on. Like the freckles on his shoulders, and how long his hair really was, and how wide his eyes got when he realized they weren't going to win that battle.

She hears banging on her door but has confidence in her makeshift militia, saluting to them, before feeling a little stupid. She can't face them yet, she is weak and shaky and broken- she can't let them see that, because they all have traveled so far trying to pretend that things were rainbows and butterflies… she couldn't set them back any farther.

"Yuffie, please let us in. What's wrong?" Aerith says, she is surprised she even asks- she always seems to know exactly what's going through everyone's mind. But then again, she died before the Turks and Avalanche decided to stop needlessly beating the shit out of each other, so she probably doesn't know what to look for. Yuffie however saw her eyes widen when she saw that man today, she knew Aerith made the same connection to him as she did- how could she not.

Axel, he called himself- it was a pretty cool name, all danger and big booms; Reno would have approved. She bits her lip, like even thinking his name makes them burn (his kisses hurt, they were rushed and reckless and frantic and she loved them, every single one of them- cause they were both too impatient for candlelit dinners and roses make her sneeze anyway), she knows she is killing herself with this, he is a long thin knife slowly slicing every inch he touched; and

she remembers _all of it._

Stars, she reminds herself, focus on the stars, but this isn't a story, and stars don't do shit in real life except twinkle and fade; and the _definitely_ aren't interesting enough to distract her from what just happened, even if they were bigger and brighter, confetti and party hats cause _she saw him_. She saw him she saw him she saw him she saw him.

Standing dramatically in some stupid alleyway, slumped over and uncaring; he didn't have his usual cigarette drooping out of his mouth, and the smirk was different, but it was him. Reno, Reno Reno Reno, all he does is raise an eyebrow.

"Who the hell is Reno?" It is the same voice, she swears it is; same tone and feeling and they even cuss the same (he always stressed the bad word; he said it made the women love him, it worked for her).

He is wearing some kind of sissy girl night gown thing, its black – showing peeks of his chest, and gawd she was wants to see more like some kind of closet pervert, she wants to test her memory and play connect the dots with the scars that outlines his skinny anorexic ribs (she asked him one time if he puked up everything he digested, cause that was totally a teenage girl thing to do, she didn't really think so though- he didn't taste like vomit) and she wants so bad to hear him tell her the story of how completely trashed he and Rude were when he got the tattoos on his back again.

She stares at him wide eyed, mouth gaping open so he got a good look at her molars and her nasty drooling pie-trap (which he was _very_ familiar with) dropping her weapons and defenses and façade- same creepy stark blue eyes piercing, searching desperately for something that he didn't find in her. Not like the real Reno did.

She wants to run up to him, and kick his pretty little face in, and scratch off the scars that are in the wrong place and direction, and make new ones where they should be. She wants to fix his hair, cause she knew he would hate what happened to it, his was messy but it wasn't _stick your tongue in a toaster _bad; he would never let it get that bad. She wants and wants and wants.

She doesn't get a chance to because she feels Leon's arm wrapped around her waist lift her before she can move, and she can hear Aerith gasp in recognition and he is running the wrong way, saying something to her but she can't listen. She screams and claws and tries with all her might to get away, because this shouldn't be happening. And she watches once again as Reno Reno Reno disappears into the same black marsh that she lost him to in the first place, and it was like _that_ day all over again.

And he is gone, and she blinks over and over again like it will erase everything she just saw, and to beat back the tears, cause she is a big girl now (rain, rain go away) and these things are supposed to get easier the second time around.

But here she is, all shallow breaths and flittering heartbeats; and she hasn't grown at all.

She is too zoned out to notice that Leon has beat his way past her well trained army of dusty furniture and gothic mirrors and is now sitting next to her, looking as concerned as the muscles in his face can contort, they are out of practice in everything except deadpanned; she wonders if maybe it's a disease- Vinnie had it too (men with pretty hair, lost lovers, silent speeches).

"You knew him," it wasn't a question, he doesn't bother speaking unless he knows what he is saying.

She nods her head weakly, "It was Reno." He doesn't say anything, she has spoke of Reno before briefly with shifty eyes and even shifter lips - red hair, smart ass, absolute mind boggling in bed- she would never go into great detail about him though, everyone else she would practically give a full body report and an in-depth personality analysis; bra size, brass hands, nervous twitches, sweat glands, anything and everything but him- she kept him to herself.

She is trying so hard not to shake (London bridge is falling down), fighting back all those bazillion nit-picky memories of _that _day. It happened to everyone at different times, but if you emphasize _that _in just the right way, there is not a god damn soul on this miserable planet that doesn't know what you are talking about. They all lost something, someone, everything on _that _day.

She remembers his cocky smirk sitting on a hotel bed with her, eyes glued on the news and window and waiting, Since it's the end of the world and all you want to get a quickie in, he says she punches him and tells him if they have keep having hot, sweaty, irresponsible sex like this her brain might explode, but they end up doing it anyway and her head doesn't combust (he offered to keep trying until it did, she didn't mind that plan of action, but they were kind of running out of time).

He tries so hard to look as confident and in control as he can in front of her, but his eyes give it away (they are the best lie detector if you know how to read them, ungodly blue ratting him out on late night bar trips, and the occasion Turk outing at the local strip club, and when he says he wasn't worried about her)- and it scares her. She has never ever ever ever ever seen Reno worried about anything- he is arrogant and carefree and oh gawd- and now she is seeing fear, real fear coming from him.

"Why did you hold me back?" her voice betrays her, glazed and small.

"It's wasn't him, Yuffie." Leon-Squall-Squleon says, she hears paper ripping and battery acid instead, "It was a nobody."

"Geez, you didn't even know him, I mean yeah he was a jack-ass sometimes- most the time, that doesn't mean he was a nob-"

"No, Yuffie. Axel is a nobody, he isn't Reno."

We can go to Tifa's bar she told Reno, invite the Turks; it isn't far from here and there is safety in numbers. Plus Avalanche has saved the world fifty billion trillion times, these things have a snowball chance in hell of taking us, she says and says and says.

They scamper off into the street like two little children (jack and jill went up the hill) her with her over sized pinwheel, and him with his flashy walking cane- holding hands and breaths, and she swears she sees him praying before they leave, and she knows it's his first time (smoking, with just a 'please don't let us fuck up'. She is pretty sure there is an unwritten rule that you aren't allowed to say fuck in a prayer- she thinks that's maybe why no one answered it.).

"No, it had to be him. He had bad hair and different weapons, but Reno could make anything a weapon; he probably just got bored of his night stick thing picked out something a little cooler looking and accidentally cut his hair when he was playing with it. It's not as hard to believe as it sounds …It _has_ to be him."

"Axel is part of Organization XIII, Yuffie. The same group Sora is fighting" he talks to her like he talks to little kids who ask him about his gunblade on the street, full of stern looks and long pauses and little words. He knows she hates it but she isn't her right now, she is a million miles away before _that _day- and he can't possibly make her understand without taking it slow. Because he has seen his fair share of ghosts before, and he knows how bad they can break you.

"No, Reno is not a bad guy anymore. We went down that road once before; finish, done, over, the end. He isn't a bad guy, Leon." She sounds younger then she is, but she is still a kid in so many ways (little bo peep has lost her sheep).

Tifa's bar doesn't hold as much comfort as Yuffie had first planned, but it's a safe haven none the less. Vinnie is there and she feels a little better, cause he has been to hell and back and as long as he is with them nothing can get them; he is already cleaning his gun when she gets there, and when his weapons are shiny like that he never misses. Tifa busies herself, making drinks, setting up rooms, faking a smile- she chooses to over look the fact that Yuffie brought a Turk into her house, or that fact that two more are coming, and since Yuffie and Vincent are the only ones that can could make it from the Avalanche team, she accepts the company graciously. Cloud is no doubt in his room, talking to the dead and writing a rough draft for the speech he will give before they go to battle, that is until Tifa excuses herself and goes upstairs- it seems her and Reno weren't the only ones who wanted to be free of sexual tension before they face the end; squeaky bed springs, Vinnie blushes, crude sex jokes, reminders of what exactly they were fighting for. Rude and Elena show up later that night, and they all drink and smoke and play poker; like they have always done.

Yuffie and Reno claim the spare bedroom upstairs (finders keepers), and she wakes up in the middle of the night to find him sitting on the window ledge in just his boxers, smoking. Those things will kill you she says, turn your lungs into holy black things, not that much unlike what we are going to fight. She isn't preaching; they all had to find comfort from something- he finds it in tightly wrapped cancer sticks, she finds in the wallets she lifted off of anyone stupid enough to be walking around (they won't need it, we are all dying). She walks over to the window and wraps her arms around him, you'll kill me before these do, he says. They just stand there for a while, he doesn't make any perverted comments, and she doesn't obnoxiously fake cough cause of his smoke; they just stand, and try to stop time as much as they can, and she makes it a point to memorize as much she possibly can about him against her like this, tracing his chest and scars with her nail bitten fingers (the itsy bitsy spider) - just in case.

When the darkness does finally catch up with them, they meet it head on- reeking of fake confidence and gunshots and swords flying. Cloud with his impromptu speech, Tifa standing behind him- distracting herself with how nicely his butt looks in those pants. Reno making faces at their makeshift leader behind his back, Rude almost smiling, Elena rolling her eyes.

They all look nervous; actors without scripts. She looks over to Reno, with heavy eyes and he winks at her and smiles- and for a moment she doesn't want to fight anymore, she wants to grab him by his stupid wrinkly jacket and drag him back to bed and make him hold her and lie to her and tell her it's all a bad terrible dream (rock-a-by baby in the treetops), but she doesn't have that luxury; they need all the help they can get. She sees Cloud raise his retarded weedwhacking sword in the air as he leads them to their last mosey.

She watches Reno turn around and stare at her for a second- calculating the odds, eyeing the pot, bluffing (war is so much like the poker she played and cheated at last night) before he takes a weighted breath, grabs her wrist and runs with the pack.

When the battle finally starts, the great saviors of the earth are humbled by how outnumbered they really are. They are all separated, hacking away at little funny looking black things that just don't die. She hears screams and cries of frustration and tries to envision a happy ending when she becomes more and more surrounded by them-

"Yuffie, He _isn't_ Reno anymore. They are not the same person. Axel has no feelings, no emotions, _he doesn't know you_." She has never hated Leon anymore then she does at that moment, it's not like he gets it- he doesn't get the heartbreaking pleasure of seeing Riona or whatever the fuck her name is with messy hair standing there all void and impossible.

She looks over to him, and he can see her shattering- big hearts break big.

She remembers the very moment the darkness swallowed him- he is swinging and cussing and losing; and she can just watch as one takes out his leg, he struggles and tumbles (humpty dumpty had a great fall) and they cover him; dozens and dozens of them and bile rises in her throat as her heart sinks because she can't get there quick enough. She remembers panicked electric blue and unruly red and the most overwhelming black imaginable- she can _never_ forget that…

"I loved him," she confesses after an eternity of heavy silence more to the stars that aren't helping then to him, Squleon stiffens because every syllable hurts- deep piercing pain that Aeris's spells could never ease. The words are coated with spider-webs and dust, she hasn't said it in years and she is surprise she even remembers how to pronounce it. "I-I loved him…"

She is back to the starting line- like she was when she woke up in Traverse Town with nothing but nightmares and bruises, back to square one because Reno-Axel-whoever she saw today lifted up the rug in her mind that she swept all the painful secrets of _that_ day under- wasps that seized their moment of freedom and swarm her mind like she prevented them from doing for _so long_. They flew down to the most hidden crevices of her buzzing and stinging every newly healed scar till it was festering and swollen and raw.

"I miss him like a rugburn, y'know?" she pauses and steadies herself, "or maybe a loose tooth- where you always feel it, that annoying dull pain in the back of your mind, and it doesn't really start _really _hurting till you pick at the scabs."

"Yeah," he polishes his words, "I know."

She looks back at him with sunken eyes and nods and glances up to the stars or worlds or whatever again. "It's not him." She sighs; trying to pull back all of the wasps- back under the rug, "It's not Reno."

He grabs hold of her hand radiating uncertainty and awkward and allows his thumb to trace small circles on her knuckles. She is concentrating on batting back all the tears that are clawing their way out- she doesn't even notice Leon's small gift of comfort. "What happens if Sora gets to him?" she asks timid.

"Nobody's are just powerful heartless Yuffie, their fate is the same when Sora finds them. He, I'm afraid, will be no exception." He hates how cold and unfeeling he sounds, but he has no words of hope to offer her.

She stiffens, pulling her hand away from his, "Oh…" escapes from her lips and is lost into the thick air. "I- We can't- I… oh" she incoherently mumbles, as she tries to find the right way to tell him that she understands or at least as much as she ever will.

"That bastard," she settles on, "that stupid bastard, why can't he pick one- live or die, it's easy. It's just like him to complicate things with heartless and nobodies and a him-that's-not-him." She is so frustrated, "What the hell am I supposed to do?" she whimpers rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"You breathe," he startles her- his voice is etched in the same heartbreak and experience, "You wake up each morning, and you breathe, and you live like he would want you to- You let go of the thought that that man is your Reno, he is not; no matter how much he looks like him, or seems like him, and you breathe."

She looks at Leon who is now trapped in his own mental bug hunt capturing the stray wasps that had escaped and were stinging his heart, just like hers. He doesn't meet her gaze or even acknowledges her presence anymore but she doesn't need him to- they both are trying to heal.

She stares back at the stars, they are dancing- slow and content and she wonders how she didn't see it before. They are swirling ever so slightly, contorting from little bright dots to blinking shapes that change ever time you _really _look at them. Maybe all those books she read really weren't pulling it from their ass- maybe there really was something to them.

"I breathe," she repeats her voice a releasing whisper, and she sit there with her rug burned heart, and cursed memories and does just that. She breathes.


End file.
